Page 74 of Still Love You

Why am I even letting myself imagine Silas and me together? I know what my future holds and it's not marrying Silas, having kids, and coming to my parents' house for dinner. In my real future I'll probably be single with no kids, eating dinner at my desk every night. God, that sounds horrible when I think about it, but I have to make sacrifices if I want to succeed.

We have dinner outside and the pizzas are great. My dad should cook more often. He's better at it than my mom.

After dinner, my dad goes into his home office to do whatever it is he does in there, while Silas, my mom, and I make soaps. Silas keeps coming up with new variations and not following the recipes. My mom doesn't care. She's all about being creative and trying new things. She just tells him to write down what ingredients he used so she can put it on the label. Actually, I'm making the labels. I've already got a template set up on the computer.

By eleven o'clock we have more than enough soap to sell. I'm sure we'll have some left over, which we can sell at the farmers' market.

"We can clean this up tomorrow," my mom says. "I need to get to bed." She says goodnight and she and my dad go to their room.

I walk Silas to the door. "Thanks for helping us."

"No problem. I can't wait to make lotions next."

I laugh. "You're not doing that. We worked you hard enough with the soaps. You need a night off."

"I don't have anything else to do. And besides, your mom really liked the new soaps I came up with. I have even more ideas for lotions."

"Are you going to test those out too?"

He smiles. "This weekend."

"Silas, that's not going to—"

He kisses me mid-sentence. "See you tomorrow." And then he leaves.

The next day he's there at seven to pick me up. We wanted to get to the farm early because it might rain later. The day goes by fast, mostly because I'm staring at Silas for most of it. It's amazing how entertaining it is to watch a hot man do physical labor.

That night we make the lotions, putting them all in cute little jars. My crafty side is really coming out. I didn't know I had a crafty side. I guess Silas is right. I have all these sides of me I didn't know existed.

On Friday, I pick berries in the morning, then after lunch Silas drops me off at home and I get to work finishing up the soaps and lotions. In addition to the labels, I make signs with the prices listed out. My mom and I went over the prices last night. I had to talk her into charging more because what she was going to charge was way too low.

My phone rings as I'm walking to the printer. "Hello?"

"Willow, it's Taylor." Taylor is one of my friends from college. She's from a family of golfers and is on the college golf team. This summer, she's back home in Phoenix, living with her parents and brother, who's a pro golfer. Living in their guest house is Luke, her brother's friend, who's also a pro golfer and the guy Taylor's in love with. Or maybe it's not love, but she has a huge crush on him.

"Taylor! I'm so glad you called. How's your summer going?"

"Great." She sighs. "But complicated."

"Because of Luke?"

"Yes. I knew this would happen. I knew having him live here would be next to impossible."

"Have you two talked?"

"We did more than talk."

"You had sex with him?"

"No, but we kissed and—never mind. It doesn't matter. I can't date Luke."

"Why not?"

"Willow, we've been over this a million times. Luke is friends with my brother and my brother would kill him for dating me."

"Who cares what your brother thinks? Tell him to stay out of it."

"It's not just him. My parents made it clear to Luke that he needed to stay away from me. It's a condition of him living here."

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